DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0135
88 THE EARLIEST HELLENIC STONE STATUES
in a curve downwards to the nostrils. The only certain use
of the chisel in the final phases of this head are to be seen on
the ribbon that passes round the hair. The flat surface of this
ribbon shows the unmistakable marks of a steady flat
chiselling.
There is no sign either of drill or compass. The final dull
polish of the surface is the polish of abrasion, not the ‘dragged’
surface characteristic of the late fifth-century sculpture where
a metal file was largely used in the last phases of the finishing
process.
The ears, extraordinarily formalized into a pattern, which
is repeated again in the Sunium Apollo, are simply a pattern
made of grooves cut out by a stone tool similar to that which
cut the eyebrow grooves.
With this head must be grouped a whole series of small
rigid and xoanon-like figures in Pentelic marble,found on the
Acropolis. They must all belong either to the last years of
the seventh century or to the first of the sixth. They are
Nos. 582, 583, 586, 589, and 593, in the Acropolis Museum.
All alike are versions of a primitive and simple type of statue,
xoanon-like in its simplicity and in its absence of detail from
the waist down. Dickins dates them all to what he calls ‘the
earliest period of Attic art’ in sculpture, and this, as we have
seen, must belong to the late seventh century, at least in
part, and to the early years of the sixth century.
There is little resemblance between these Attic figures
and the Cretan statues. There is, perhaps, a similarity of
hieratic stiffness, but there the similarity seems to end. All
the Attic series are small statues, mostly about half natural
scale, with the notable exception of No. 593, which is full
scale, and in extremely good preservation as regards surface,
although the head of this, as indeed in the case of all the
others, is missing. From a technical point of view much can
be learned from this full-scale figure, and what is so learnt
is more or less confirmed by the other examples, even though
they are badly weathered.
in a curve downwards to the nostrils. The only certain use
of the chisel in the final phases of this head are to be seen on
the ribbon that passes round the hair. The flat surface of this
ribbon shows the unmistakable marks of a steady flat
chiselling.
There is no sign either of drill or compass. The final dull
polish of the surface is the polish of abrasion, not the ‘dragged’
surface characteristic of the late fifth-century sculpture where
a metal file was largely used in the last phases of the finishing
process.
The ears, extraordinarily formalized into a pattern, which
is repeated again in the Sunium Apollo, are simply a pattern
made of grooves cut out by a stone tool similar to that which
cut the eyebrow grooves.
With this head must be grouped a whole series of small
rigid and xoanon-like figures in Pentelic marble,found on the
Acropolis. They must all belong either to the last years of
the seventh century or to the first of the sixth. They are
Nos. 582, 583, 586, 589, and 593, in the Acropolis Museum.
All alike are versions of a primitive and simple type of statue,
xoanon-like in its simplicity and in its absence of detail from
the waist down. Dickins dates them all to what he calls ‘the
earliest period of Attic art’ in sculpture, and this, as we have
seen, must belong to the late seventh century, at least in
part, and to the early years of the sixth century.
There is little resemblance between these Attic figures
and the Cretan statues. There is, perhaps, a similarity of
hieratic stiffness, but there the similarity seems to end. All
the Attic series are small statues, mostly about half natural
scale, with the notable exception of No. 593, which is full
scale, and in extremely good preservation as regards surface,
although the head of this, as indeed in the case of all the
others, is missing. From a technical point of view much can
be learned from this full-scale figure, and what is so learnt
is more or less confirmed by the other examples, even though
they are badly weathered.